In its long-running battle with Pandora over royalty payments for streaming songs, the record business dispatched its most potent weapon – prominent musicians – to Capitol Hill this week. Before last Wednesday's hearing about the Internet Radio Fairness Act, which Pandora is backing to correct what its executives call an "astonishingly high royalty burden," five of the world's top songwriters showed opposition to the bill with microphones, guitars and a piano at the Rayburn House Office Building. Linda Perry played "Beautiful," the hit she wrote for Christina Aguilera, and declared: "Pandora wants to make money – more money – off the thing we created."
The House bill pits the Internet-radio giant, which had 60 million listeners in the last 30 days, and its supporters against a business that has been devastated over the past decade by piracy and a shift from $18 CDs to 99-cent downloads. The bipartisan bill's sponsor, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), argued: "Internet radio should be a boon to the entire audio market, but instead it's barely hanging on." But Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan) said it "would cut royalties and deprive artists of the fair-market value of their work."
The State of Streaming Music
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ALSO http://gigaom.com/2011/08/25/pandora-ads-traditional-radio/
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